Wednesday’s Mini-Report, 4.30.14

* Botched execution: “The Oklahoma governor, Mary Fallin, said at a news conference that she had asked for an independent review of the failed execution of Clayton D. Lockett by the state’s Department of Public Safety. Governor Fallin said that she had asked for a full assessment of Mr. Lockett’s cause of death, a review of whether officials had followed execution protocols and whether those protocols needed to be improved.”

* White House weighs in: “As officials in Oklahoma said they would investigate the botched execution that has drawn worldwide scrutiny, the White House weighed in and said that the execution was not conducted humanely.”

* A terrifying tragedy in Nigeria: “Two weeks ago, more than 200 girls were kidnapped from a school in Nigeria. On Wednesday, women from around Nigeria gathered in the capital to demand answers as to just why the full force of the government has not been brought to bear in finding their missing daughters, nieces, and sisters.” By some unverified accounts, the girls were sold as brides to militants for $12.

* Ukraine: “As pro-Russian gunmen seized another city in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, the country’s acting president said the government’s police and security officials were ‘helpless’ to control events in large swaths of the region, where at least a dozen cities are now in the hands of separatists.”

* Virginia: “A CSX Corp train carrying crude oil derailed and burst into flames in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia on Wednesday, spilling oil into the James River and forcing the evacuation of hundreds.”

* Iraq’s elections: “Iraqis have nervously cast ballots in a national election seen as a referendum on security issues that could have widespread ramifications for the unity of the region. Wednesday’s ballot was conducted under an intensive security dragnet, and it passed largely without incident, despite weeks of rising violence as the poll approached.”

* Scientific American editor Michael Moyer agreed to appear on “Fox & Friends” this morning to discuss future tech trends, but when he suggested the impact of climate change would the top trend, the network asked him to choose a different topic. Fox News denied Moyer’s claim, prompting Moyer to highlight a quote from a Fox producer’s email bolstering his story.

* I couldn’t quite muster the energy to write up an item on Maureen Dowd’s disappointing column today, so I was glad to see Simon Maloy highlight her piece’s “total incoherence.” (Be sure to check out Maloy’s final paragraph.)

* Former President Bill Clinton had the Quote of the Day: “If a policymaker is a political leader and is covered primarily by the political press, there is a craving that borders on addictive to have a storyline. And then once people settle on the storyline, there is a craving that borders on blindness to shoehorn every fact, every development, every thing that happens into the story line, even if it’s not the story.”